Consider Yourself Kissed

Good Story. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked the Coralie. She had come over to the UK from Australia with her job. She had lived and worked in East London. Lived in Hackney. Met a guy named Adam who is a political writer who follows Conservative leader Boris Johnson. Adam also had a daughter named Zora.

Adam and Coralie fall in love. Coralie and Zora become very close. She and Adam are together for a number of years. Coralie mum is ill quite and she has to go back to Australia. Unfortunately her mum passes away. Her dad had a partner and they split up. Adam visits Australia to be with Coralie. They both return and they resume their life in London.
Coralie brother also moves to London and meets his partner.

Coralie and Adam have two children. Coralie has to give up her job to look after the kids and this takes its toll whilst Adam career really takes off but this affects their relationship which becomes exhausting for Coralie and they both split up. She moves to another flat but still sees the kids and Adam. I did like the way the writer wrote about life under the tory government. I thought it had really set the story up nicely. A good love story. The title of the book does have a different meaning to it which I thought was nice.

Coralie leaves her native country of Australia and moves to the UK to escape her old life and start all over again. She works in copywriting and transfers to the UK branch of her Australian employer. When she arrives in the UK she is determined to pursue her interest in writing and limits her activities outside work in order to facilitate this. But then she meets Adam, a political commentator and they soon move in together. The next ten years do not run as smoothly as she might have hoped.

This book was well written and the writing style flowed, making it easy to read. There are tender moments and there are amusing moments but the thing that struck me most was how perceptive and insightful the author was.
Adam is the divorced father of a wonderful 4-year old daughter and Adam and Carolie also have children of their own. As Adam’s career becomes more demanding, he becomes something of an absentee husband. Coralie’s writing has to be put on hold as she tries to bring up all the children with little or no help and she starts to feel used, abused and unfulfilled, desperate to get back to her writing but not being able to find the time. The author obviously understood what Coralie was going through and described it well so that the reader could share in the pain and frustration of a relationship that was falling apart.
There are some wonderful characters in the novel, not least the gay grannies and Zora, the delightful stepdaughter.

Although I enjoyed the book there were a few things which detracted from its appeal. Firstly it is set during a turbulent decade in British politics and both Coralie’s husband and Zora’s stepfather are heavily involved in politics. Whilst I am sure that a lot of research went in to accurately incorporating the current affairs of the day into the narrative, to be quite honest I wish they had been left out. There was way too much politicking.
Secondly, Coralie did seem to moan rather a lot and this became a bit wearing. Maybe it is realistic and maybe it is understandable but I don‘t really want to fill my leisure time with other people’s woes.
Finally, I am writing this review a couple of weeks after finishing the novel and that has unearthed another issue – it does not score highly on the memorability scale. In fact I had to read a couple of reviews to remind myself of the content.

Overall this is a very readable novel. It is certainly good enough for me to recommend it to other readers, although the over-abundance of politics may put some people off.

A modern day love story, with well developed characters. Whilst I enjoyed this author’s writing, I thought the story lacked pace. The book’s political bias may limit its appeal.

I found this book to be another summer love story read. There was nothing wrong with it but there was also nothing much to recommend it either. It is a boy meets girl, they fall in love and begin their life together. He is divorced with a brilliant young daughter. They each have jobs they love and life is good. She get pregnant, His job takes off and she finds herself trying to do it all on her own. She has the baby and still tries to do it all. Fatigue and depression result. Etc. Etc. Will or won't the relationship survive?
All that said, it is a well written book with some good dialogue but too simplistic for my taste.

This is the story of a young Australian girl who finds herself working in London, falling in love and having an extended family. We see the main character, Coralie, weave her way through life.

The book is well written, however, it drags a bit in the parts that describe the political situation in the UK and occasionally in Australia. Mostly Brexit, the Boris years, the Tories, and various other real-life political milestones in history. These were not suspenseful moments but rather a regurgitation of history.

Whilst the story was readable and engaging, I felt there was something missing. There was no shoe dropping moment in particular. I felt there wasn’t a dramatic moment or two that could have shifted the story. I found the ending somewhat cliched.

There were some threads in the story that didn’t particularly go anywhere - some of the friends Coralie acquired throughout the story just disappeared, eg Sam. And perhaps her brother‘s partner could have been embellished a little bit more to add a twist. There were a lot of names throughout and I found at some points I was confused as to who was who. Characters included Zora, Max, Florence, Hannah, Sally, Anne, Sam, Adam, Dan, Madonna, princess Di, the big man, Roger, Tory Tom, Marina, Coralie.

It’s a readable story but is heavy on political themes and could use some spice.
3.5/5